September 2 2078

  They had us asleep... for forty one fucking days. I had only realized, once I was able to parse the nixie tube clock.

  I'd tried to sleep, but failed. After a couple of hours of lying over the covers with my eyes shut, I gave up. I sat up, and decided to take a shower.

  I began to undress, starting with the shoes they put me in. I popped off the right shoe, and a piece of paper tumbled to the floor. I reached down and grabbed it.

  I unfolded the paper and read, “Look under insole.”

  I sighed and shook my head. I reached out and grabbed the shoe. Removing the insole revealed a hollowed portion in the heel. It was just thick enough to hold the chip lying within.

  I pulled the chip out of my shoe, and gave it a once over look. Once I was satisfied in thinking it might not kill me or destroy my data port, I inserted it into my neck. There was a satisfying click once it was fully seated.

  My vision began to fade, and I quickly laid back down before I lost full bodily control. A video popped into my vision, and it began to play automatically.

  The video showed the dispatch office. It had to have been filmed at night. The lights were pulled down, and everyone had been cleared out of this section of the space. The camera was set above a desk at a downward angle, showing the table surface and an empty chair.

  Daniels walked into frame. He was holding a shoe in one of his hands. His face was still wet from tears he must have been crying. He sat down in the chair and set down the shoe.

  “Hello Valencia. Good morning, I suppose. I'm not quite sure when you'll see this, but I imagine in the morning”

  Daniels fumbled over his words. He pulled a bottle of water and ripped the cap off. Using his off hand, he slammed the whole bottle. Daniels had to wait a second to catch his breath before he could continue.

  “Anyway. I'm sure you are upset. All four of you deserve to be angry. I recommend, go find a way to vent the anger out and then begin the task. Go make friends with the locals.”

  “Go make friends with the locals? What the fuck are we doing, colonizing the mantle?”, I thought to myself with a laugh.

  “Your job, is to take this data chip here.”, Daniels said, holding it up in front of the camera, “And place it in the DNS server of the place we're sending you four. The suits have said they would you prefer to wait for a bit and retrieve the chip from the server, but they won't Once you accomplish the task, exfil as quickly as possible.”

  Daniels placed the chip into the shoe. He once more showed the camera. After placing the shoe back onto the table, he reinserted the insole.

  “This is Officer Sidorkin's left shoe. Make sure he's found it as soon as you can. I apologize we couldn't send you four down with any equipment. It will be procure on site. Good luck.”

  Daniels wiped away some tears before the tape cut out.

  “Yeah, cry me a river, asshole. Must be real tough for ya”, I thought.

  I continued on Operation: angry shower. I nearly scalded myself adjusting the settings on the new shower. I hadn't expected such hot water right out of the gate. I dried myself off, and changed into something out of my new dresser. They had a shocking amount of my actual clothes put inside.

  I dragged myself back to the living room. I had to go ask Alex a question.

  I hopped into the conversation pit. Alex was eating an orange. He tossed an extra one my way.

  “Did you check inside your shoe?”, I asked.

  “Yeah. The paper was stabbing into my foot”, he answered, stuffing a slice of orange into his mouth, “I'm going to check the place out for bugs later.”

  I bit some of the skin off the orange, and used the opening to peel the rest normally. The flesh was weirdly pink. I popped a slice into my mouth, and noticed a distinct strawberry flavor in the orange.

  “What's going on with this?”, I asked Alex.

  “Not quite sure, but I saw an option for “Strornge” on the food requisition slip. We have 20 of them.”

  I stared at him for a moment. He stared back. We both began to laugh at the insanity of it all.

  “Have you looked outside yet?”, I asked him.

  “Yeah. It was beautiful.”

  He pressed a button on a remote, and a television popped out of the floor. On the side of the pit without seats. He browsed through the content for a bit, until settling on a nature documentary about insects. I fell asleep as some old British fellow was explaining ant hives.

  I awoke, snug as a bug in a rug. I then hit the floor. I had rolled in my sleep, and was now trapped in a blanket. After beating my greatest foe, a rectangle, I checked the time.

  0638.

  I folded the blanket up and dropped it on the back of the couch. I went back to my bedroom, and got ready for my day. I was brushing my teeth, when I heard a chip-tune rooster cry out.

  I finished getting ready, and popped my head into a little alcove next to the bathroom. There was a terminal hidden back there. The monitor showed a pixelated chicken in a meadow, crowing at the sun. I sat at the chair in front of the terminal. The screen asked for my credentials, and I saw a socket to place my key-card into.

  I was greeted by several messages upon loading into the desktop environment. Dr. Antonova informed me she would be stopping by at 0900 to pick me up to show off the work spaces. Alex requested Max and James stop by to begin planning tonight. And strangely, a third piece of communication from the the lab itself.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I re-read the message a few times. I quickly typed up, “what is the ethical reason we cannot eat pandas?” I chuckled at the silly question, before I deleted it.

  I got up, went to the kitchen, and made some scrambled eggs for breakfast. I was curious as to how the hell they had fresh eggs down here, but chose not to think too much about it. I only had a couple of hours before work, and couldn't afford to be distracted by where underground eggs come from.

  A short while later, Inessa came by to take me to the engineering space. We left the flat, noting the door number: 157 section 4, floor 32b. We went to an elevator that took us down to the lowest level of habitation, where we transferred to a central elevator shaft to take us further below. A short ride later, I was stood before a massive hologram of a man named Imhotep, the first known engineer.

  Inessa and I went further through the engineering halls. She had to practically drag me through, as I kept stopping to gawk at the massive holograms throughout the wings. Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, and even Hedy Lamar, all given holograms for their contributions in technology to make this place possible.

  We soon arrived in the bio-network cable production lab. Inessa showed me the process through which they were produced. The long and short of it was, by using strings soaked in a copper and nutrient solution, you could grow the cables like vines on a trellis. They simply grew along the string. Once they finished, a copper pebble would pop out of the bottom, and the cable would be good to go.

  I was given space to study the production methods throughout the morning. It was boring. It was tedious. Hell, I fucking hated it and was near to tears for my choice. But I couldn't weep. I'd chosen this.

  I was grabbed for lunch. We went to a simple canteen in the engineering space, named Esseneering. I had some “Cracked” Oil Noodles. I groaned at the pun, but the hot oil noodles were pretty tasty.

  After noon, Inessa took me down to see the reactor. We took another elevator further down. We went past the manufacturing areas, as well as the farms. Further down, above the biology labs, lay the reactor. After entering the power plant, I was taken to the control room. Windows on either side of the hall showed we were elevated over a massive bank of capacitors. I saw the occasional flash of lightning from the power banks.

  We entered the control room, where about fifteen people sat at separate control stations. Two members, Dr. Laika Malek and Dr. Kerry Lyons came to greet us. They were the two full time nuclear engineers at the power plant.

  After our initial greetings, I asked a question. I wanted to know why nuclear instead of geothermal. The answer was silicon wafer production. They needed to process all the silicon crystals into wafters and finally into the finished chips. The reactor team supplied the PCB for every piece of electronics used down here.

  They offered to show the me the reactor. I took them up on it. I was taken from the control room to a massive chamber.

  The room was a massive cube, about 200 meters on each side. Sunk into the floor was the reactor, and above was a gantry-way holding a crane. On the either side of the room was an elevated platform. We'd entered the chamber on one of them. On the other was another massive door. On each platform was both a ladder and a lift to access the lower level.

  Inside the room, I gazed into the maw of the void. The blue glow of the reactor felt almost inviting. Dr. Malek pulled me back from the edge, and brought me back to the control room.

  Eventually, the day wound down, and Dr. Antonova escorted me back to my flat. We said our goodbyes, and I headed back inside. Inside was Alex, once more hanging out in the conversation pit. I jumped down, joining Alex in the pit. He was eating pancakes with strawcherry jam.

  “How was your first day?”, I asked, genuinely curious.

  “It was fine. They gave me their on-boarding information, and I've spent most of the day learning the workings of everything down here. I've got a lot to do if we want to get this job done. I want to get the hell out of here.”

  Business first as always.

  “I got a question, Alex. How do you always stay calm? Have a plan?”, I asked.

  Alex sat up, and finished what he was eating. He flipped off the nature documentary, and looked over at me.

  “Answer this, Valencia. Have you ever quite been.... Run through like this before? Any job fuck you over like this before?”, he asked me.

  His question had sent a flash of anger through me. Not because he'd made me mad, but more because I realized how betrayed I'd been feeling.

  “No. It's my first time being kidnapped for some weird corporate espionage. Why do you ask?”, I answered.

  “Well, in the Army, we had this concept. It was called, the “green weenie.” The simple fact is that no matter what, the Army would find a way to fuck us over at any turn. You just learn to live with it.”

  Alex stood up, and gathered his dishes and began to head toward the kitchen.

  “It's best you learn to take care of yourself. You can start by having something to eat. What do you want for dinner? Make it simple, the others are coming over soon. We gotta plan some shit out.”

  “Tomato soup, with crackers.”